Siegmund
Well-known member
I can't speak for anyone else, but for me:
I'd be fine with a clock that displayed only minutes and seconds. I always know what time it is within an hour without one.
It's not a matter how busy one is, but what things one does.
You want to take your pulse after you exercise? Are you going to count heartbeats for 15 seconds while watching the second hand, or wait until you see your clock flip over a to a new minute, then count for a whole minute while keeping an eagle eye on the clock to see when the minute is up?
You want to know whether you're rushing a piece when you play without a metronome? Real handy to know how many bars long the piece is and how many seconds it takes to play it.
A couple examples from my own life:
I play a lot of online poker tournaments. I can sit at my computer all afternoon waiting for them to start, or I can alert myself that I need to go get ready just before the scheduled start time. If I have half an hour to kill before game time, I might play my accordion --- if, and only if, I can see what time it is while I'm playing, and perhaps have an alarm set to remind me a few minutes prior. If I can't... guess I won't practice.
At night I enjoy going outside to watch satellites and the Space Station pass overhead. They're mostly retired now, but I used to go out to see the ultra-bright flashes of reflected sunlight called "Iridium flares": predicting those required knowing your latitude and longitude to within ~1km or so, and knowing the time to within a few seconds.
Cell phones and similar devices have two really annoying features. One, they are often hardwired to show only hour and minute, and you have to unlock the screen and go to a special clock app to see the seconds -- even just tapping to get the screen on is one more tap than is necessary to look at a watch. Two, since they're built on the assumption they'll often be connected to the internet or a cell network, many of them are hideously bad at keeping time. Better not rely on one to tell you what time it is if you go camping, or anywhere else without a signal. Even a cheap watch can keep time within a second or so per day. (Anything that can't keep time to a second a day doesn't deserve to be called a clock. I don't want to have to reset it to my atomic-clock receiver more often than once a month or so.)
I had a Fitbit for a while. I liked knowing how many steps I had walked. I would have really liked to use it as my wristwatch. But no option to show seconds, and if I didn't sync it to my tablet or computer daily, it lost track of time - it could lose 5 minutes a day, or just get confused and pick a random time several hours off to display.
I would have really liked to know how many steps per minute I averaged -- but to find out I either had to go for an hour-long walk at a steady pace, or bring a watch with me. (It turns out I was consistent enough with my pace at around 110 steps per minute that for time spans up to 15 minutes or so, looking at the step counter was a great deal more useful than looking at the time on it was.)
Now, there are certainly ways to do those things without getting a precise watch: if you only need elapsed time rather than absolute time, use a stopwatch; set an alarm; use a phone app with seconds and set the screen to stay on at all times and accept your battery will die in a few hours; and so on.
But for me, the easy answer is a precise and easy-to-read watch.
Yes. Seconds. Not just minutes.
I'd be fine with a clock that displayed only minutes and seconds. I always know what time it is within an hour without one.
Yes.
It's not a matter how busy one is, but what things one does.
You want to take your pulse after you exercise? Are you going to count heartbeats for 15 seconds while watching the second hand, or wait until you see your clock flip over a to a new minute, then count for a whole minute while keeping an eagle eye on the clock to see when the minute is up?
You want to know whether you're rushing a piece when you play without a metronome? Real handy to know how many bars long the piece is and how many seconds it takes to play it.
A couple examples from my own life:
I play a lot of online poker tournaments. I can sit at my computer all afternoon waiting for them to start, or I can alert myself that I need to go get ready just before the scheduled start time. If I have half an hour to kill before game time, I might play my accordion --- if, and only if, I can see what time it is while I'm playing, and perhaps have an alarm set to remind me a few minutes prior. If I can't... guess I won't practice.
At night I enjoy going outside to watch satellites and the Space Station pass overhead. They're mostly retired now, but I used to go out to see the ultra-bright flashes of reflected sunlight called "Iridium flares": predicting those required knowing your latitude and longitude to within ~1km or so, and knowing the time to within a few seconds.
Cell phones and similar devices have two really annoying features. One, they are often hardwired to show only hour and minute, and you have to unlock the screen and go to a special clock app to see the seconds -- even just tapping to get the screen on is one more tap than is necessary to look at a watch. Two, since they're built on the assumption they'll often be connected to the internet or a cell network, many of them are hideously bad at keeping time. Better not rely on one to tell you what time it is if you go camping, or anywhere else without a signal. Even a cheap watch can keep time within a second or so per day. (Anything that can't keep time to a second a day doesn't deserve to be called a clock. I don't want to have to reset it to my atomic-clock receiver more often than once a month or so.)
I had a Fitbit for a while. I liked knowing how many steps I had walked. I would have really liked to use it as my wristwatch. But no option to show seconds, and if I didn't sync it to my tablet or computer daily, it lost track of time - it could lose 5 minutes a day, or just get confused and pick a random time several hours off to display.
I would have really liked to know how many steps per minute I averaged -- but to find out I either had to go for an hour-long walk at a steady pace, or bring a watch with me. (It turns out I was consistent enough with my pace at around 110 steps per minute that for time spans up to 15 minutes or so, looking at the step counter was a great deal more useful than looking at the time on it was.)
Now, there are certainly ways to do those things without getting a precise watch: if you only need elapsed time rather than absolute time, use a stopwatch; set an alarm; use a phone app with seconds and set the screen to stay on at all times and accept your battery will die in a few hours; and so on.
But for me, the easy answer is a precise and easy-to-read watch.
